We’ve created this easy to use Live Chat for Hotels Best Practices Guide to help you realize your live chat goals.

While the traveler begins to explore the endless possibilities for that perfect hotel stay, they will search sites that have the most appealing visuals and the easiest, quickest responses to their questions. This initial emotional connection becomes the hotel’s opportunity to tap into the traveler’s journey and ‘wow’ that prospective guest into choosing your hotel. With the right approach and tools, hotels could start building relationships that turn into satisfied guests who will give repeat business – Here enters live chat for hotels.

Live Chat Agents

Live chat agents could be one of the first contacts your guest or prospective guest will have with your hotel. As such, you would want to ensure that they have a warm, friendly approach and provide informative, clear and accurate information. To the prospective guest, the experience should feel like they are asking advice or information from a trusted friend. Live chat ‘friends’ would be there to guide them and gently push them along toward clicking on that book now button.

So now you have the right tool with live chat for hotels on your website. Now you need to make it all about the guest experience. The key is to treat visitors as people – show your human side. To provide the best customer experience, live chat agents should:

1. Own the conversation: Be truly helpful. Ask precise but simple questions that leave nothing to interpretation. Build trust and credibility with the customer using warm language that is tone of voice in chat, avoiding sarcasm and opinions. Ensure people they are in capable and friendly hands.

2. Be pleasant & empathetic: Put yourself in the requestor’s shoes. Your tone will carry through the written conversation so be respectful. Never leave a question unanswered. Leave your attitude at the door. The whole point is to make the person contacting you feel they can trust you. Be polite and show you value the guest.

3. Communicate professionally: The very nature of live chat is written communication. So be clear. Dot your “i”s and cross your “t”s. Avoid typos. Use proper grammar, punctuation and spelling. Write complete sentences. No colloquial jargon or acronyms as not everyone would be familiar with them.

4. Answer quickly and concisely: Being there the moment someone reaches out is the natural promise of live chat. It’s the immediacy of help or direction that catches the requestor’s attention. So keep their attention by promptly responding to every message. No stalling or fumbling for words as you not only risk having the person leave the chat but your hotel would lose the opportunity for guest satisfaction.

5. Show you are an expert: Agents needs to be well trained and have a good knowledge base. You need to be sure what you are saying when sharing information and providing website guidance to visitors. It’ the best way to win over the visitor’s confidence and have them come back again and again.

Once these basics are set, your hotel is on its way to providing guests with the wow factor. Live Chats that leave the prospective guest feeling happy create a positive experience they will not forget and will want to share with others – they become your ideal hotel ambassadors. Have you added live chat to your customer service strategy?

I have three pieces of advice that are critical to any social media crisis management plan and will help you get through any crisis – social media or otherwise.

Don’t Panic about a Social Media Crisis!

OK, here goes…

1) Do not panic
2) Stop Panicking
3) See step 1 and/or step 2

When you go into panic mode, bad decisions are made. A bad decision regarding a crisis on social media is unforgiving. And that is the last thing you need when the responsibility of your hotel’s reputation is on your shoulders.

Do not panic. Take a deep breath.

This is where your leadership skills come into play:

Gather your marketing team, even those outside of social media, and members of whatever department is the focus of the crisis.

Discuss the situation – Is it a crisis or just an outburst?

Select one lead person to manage the situation

Create a plan and strategy for handling the situation

Simple, right? The issue is in the 4th bullet point. How do you create a plan and strategy for a crisis or an outburst on social media? The important part of addressing this question is that the plan needs to be in place BEFORE a social media crisis or outburst arises. The plan will feel like a security blanket and not panicking will be easier than you think.

Think of it like house insurance. You have it, hopefully never need it. Should there be a fire in your home, you are covered. Having a social media crisis plan in place is like insurance for your reputation.

Yes, social media content is fast paced, immediate and ‘fun’. The truth is that social media for businesses is a bit more serious.

This is usually the time when upper management realizes that hiring an inexperienced intern wasn’t the best idea. I always joke with my team that posting a picture of a cute kitten is easy, but the cute kitten isn’t going to help you in a crisis.

Every crisis or outburst on social media is different and should be dealt with accordingly. If I could offer one piece of advice when creating your crisis management plan, it would be to accept you cannot control the situation but you can certainly influence it.

Influence allows you to change the perception, guide it to where you need it to go, manage the outcries and be human about the issue to your audience.

Do you have a social media crisis management plan in place for your hotel?

Guest moments begin long before visitors arrive at your hotel website. You know you want to get away for a bit but have no particular destination in mind. So you turn to your smartphone, tablet or desktop and start surfing the net looking for inspiration. You dream about sea, surf, beach view rooms, mountain cabins, good eateries, activities and spa treatments you would love to try out. Now you need to figure out the where, when and how – so many choices. Is your hotel there in the traveler’s journey to ensure their online experience moves them onto your hotel doorstep?

Life is not measured by the number of breaths, but by the moments that take our breath away.

When guests start their journey with no particular hotel in mind but rather searching to see what and who best fills their needs and wants – those places, hotels or activities that will realize their idea of a dream stay – your hotel should be searchable. Whether it’s at the moment a potential guest starts surfing the net, in the planning stages or during their stay, hotel marketers need to tap into those snippets of time offering the most relevant information that will capture – and hold – the traveler or guest interest.

Hotel marketers have the perfect opportunity to find ways to capitalize on these guest moments. Providing great visuals is a start as people are likely to gravitate toward what comes to them visually than something they read. But while the photos or videos will lure in the guest, live chat will provide quick answers, direction and information that will keep the traveler on your site. At the same time it will lower overall contact center costs as live chat can handle multi-guest interactions eliminating additional hires.

Capture the Traveler with Live Chat for Hotels

Your hotel needs to capture the traveler in all steps of their decision-making. Making information easily accessible, you will speak to the guest’s needs and not miss the chance of gaining their loyalty or increasing chances of a booking. Too many steps might exasperate the inquisitive traveler who just wants quick details and live chat can help them narrow down their choices. Live chat will also create the potential to increase sales as it provides the chance to upsell by leading a guest to the correct place to reserving a room or booking a meeting.

Live chat puts a personal touch to the conversation and gives you the edge in providing the greatest customer service that guests will remember during their search moments. You will be speaking to the guest’s needs and not miss the chance of gaining their loyalty, keep them coming back and spread the word to others.

Ensure your hotel is part of the guest’s journey today. From visualizing that dream spot or wedding to planning to booking. The moments of their journey become your opportunity to earn a stronger ROI.

Lodging Interactive, the leading digital marketing and social media engagement agency exclusively serving the hospitality industry, today announced its expanded CoMMingle Live ChatSM service for hotels and resorts. The fully managed live chat for hotels now provides properties with coverage 7 days a week. CoMMingle Live Chat provides hotels with the ability to enable their websites with live chat capabilities that are fully managed by Lodging Interactive’s US based lived chat agents, 7 days a week.

“Our goal has always been to enable hotels and resorts to provide website sales support to their customers and to so, 7 days a week,” said Mr. DJ Vallauri, Lodging Interactive’s Founder and CEO. “Our expanded 7 day coverage fulfills this vision and maximizes the online conversion opportunities for our hotel and resort clients.”

Live Chat for Hotels

The CoMMingle Live Chat for Hotels service is a fully managed, turn-key service. It combines best-of-breed SAAS (Software as a Service) cloud based technologies and Lodging Interactive’s internal network of highly trained live chat agents. The result is a highly effective customer engagement and sales support service hotels can utilize to maximize their direct to website booking channels.

“The way consumers expect to communicate with hotels has changed, and consumers are increasingly turning to live chat as their preferred and fastest route of communication for hotel customer support while in the booking process,” added Mr. Vallauri. “A recent Gartner report suggests that live chat as a customer engagement channel will increase from 2% to 10% by 2018, with over 80% of companies making live chat available for their customers by 2020.

Benefits of using CoMMingle Live Chat for Hotels

Real-time customer engagement throughout the booking process

Provides conversational commerce while assisting in the booking process

Increase in direct bookings and event RFP submissions

Reduces negative reviews/comments posted to TripAdvisor & OTA sites

Crisis alert escalation to property as needed

Offers true market differentiation within competitive set

Unlimited live agent fully managed chats for low monthly fee

100% mobile responsive enabled

100% US based live chat agents, employed by Lodging Interactive

Getting started with CoMMingle Live Chat is easy and implementation only requires a small snippet of code be added to the hotel website. Start engaging your hotel guests, get CoMMingle Live Chat today!

About Lodging Interactive

Headquartered in Parsippany, NJ, Lodging Interactive is a full-service digital marketing and social media engagement agency exclusively servicing the hospitality industry. Through its web design and search optimization division as well as its CoMMingle Social Media Division, Lodging Interactive provides effective Internet marketing services to hundreds of branded and independent properties as well as management companies, restaurants and spas. The company also offers fully managed Live Chat agents for hotel websites through its LiveChatForHotels.com division.

Lodging Interactive is a proud supporter of the Hotel Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI) and the company’s president, DJ Vallauri, currently serves on the Board of Directors of HSMAI’s New York Chapter. For more information, please contact sales@lodginginteractive.com, 877-291-4411 or visit the company’s website.

https://lodginginteractive.com/wp-content/uploads/logo-lodging-interactive-2016dark340.png00djvallaurihttps://lodginginteractive.com/wp-content/uploads/logo-lodging-interactive-2016dark340.pngdjvallauri2016-09-19 10:54:222017-01-13 09:19:22Lodging Interactive Expands Its Fully Managed Hotel Live Chat Service to 7 Days a Week

PARSIPPANY, NJ – September 17, 2016 Lodging Interactive, the leading digital marketing and social media engagement agency exclusively serving the hospitality industry, will be holding a free online webinar to discuss how hotels and resorts can use its CoMMingle Live Chat service to immediately increase group/wedding RFP submissions and drive direct bookings.

“Since the launch of CoMMingle Live Chat, dozens of hotels have made the commitment to improve their online website customer service and to build loyalty by increasing online engagement with their customers,” said DJ Vallauri, Lodging Interactive Founder & CEO. “The results have been increased online submissions of group and wedding RFPs as well up-selling opportunities that drive direct bookings.”

CoMMingle Live Chat service benefits for hotels:

Real-time customer engagement throughout the booking process

Provides conversational commerce while assisting in the booking process

A key component to successful digital advertising for hotels is to put a hotel digital marketing plan in place. A digital marketing plan is a clear and concise way to map out your goals for the upcoming year, as well as the strategies to put in place to help achieve these goals. Because a digital marketing plan will be for the upcoming year, it is advisable to begin planning in the summer of the current year and that your plan be outlined by quarter. Outlining by month can become overwhelming and quite cumbersome.

Primary Focus of a Hotel Digital Marketing Plan

You want the primary focus of your hotel digital marketing plan to be on the goals of the hotel, so it’s a good idea to gain an early understanding of what you’ll be concentrating your efforts on in the next years. Perhaps you want to book 75 weddings or increase group business. Maybe you need help with transient business on the weekends. Your goals may also be dependent on the time of year. Some hotels, depending on the market, have more difficulty obtaining room nights based on the quarter. Whatever the case may be, it is important that you convey to your account manager what you are looking to accomplish. Then you can collectively work on suggestions to help reach these goals.

Hotel Digital Marketing Strategies

In addition to focusing strategies on your hotel’s goals, you also want to work on hotel digital marketing strategies for holidays throughout the year, events going on in the market, and what your competition is doing. Major holidays are a great opportunity for many hotels to get ahead with room/dining reservations. If you offer certain holiday specials or provide holiday menus, such as an Easter Brunch or a Thanksgiving Dinner, you’ll want to include these items in your plan and stick to a timeline as to when such items should be available for posting on your website. You should make sure your holiday specials/menus are posted at least 2 months prior to the occasion. Potential guests are making plans well in advance these days.

What about events specific to your hotel’s market? There are excellent city planning guides available for most major cities that are chock full of great information, including top attractions in an area, major conventions coming to town or events that could be potential demand drivers for your hotel.

Hotel Competitive Landscape

You also want to know what your hotel competition is doing, so you can stay ahead of the game. Competitors may have great ideas or insight that you can capitalize on. It’s also a wise move to check out the comp set when it comes to holiday postings. You don’t want to be caught without your holiday specials/menus posted, while other hotels in the market are making their specials readily available weeks in advance. That’s a surefire way to lose customers. What about new competition? Make sure you know about new hotels opening in your market. New competition will always be something you want to be prepared for.

If you want your hotel to be successful in the hotel digital marketing arena, follow a digital marketing plan. It’s an easy and effective way to work through your goals, organize strategies and maintain a timeline of your efforts throughout the year. You’ll be impressed with the results.

Uber testing driverless cars in Pittsburgh. Siri giving us directions and information. Boomerang Respondable helping us write effective emails. Messaging apps providing quick responses to queries. Artificial Intelligence that only seemed possible in a Star Trek episode is in our daily lives right here and now. So hang onto to your FitBit because hoteliers will need to step it up a notch with what’s in store for the future of hotel customer service.

Messaging apps usage is creating a sonic boom throughout the hotel industry. Though they have been around for more than 10 years, messaging apps have experienced a resurgence that has grown beyond their use in retail. With the explosion of mobile usage and messaging apps allowing for easy integration into websites, hoteliers need to be mindful of the potential use of live chat apps in expanding their follower base and generating revenue.

There is no magic to it. The technology has been around for many years and the recipe to creating a successful digital imprint is already in the hotel digital marketer’s cookbook – just add some simple spices to reap the benefits of live chat apps:

Inviting dialogue and encouraging exchanges is already part of your hotel’s online strategy but with live chat apps this has never played a more important role. It will be the differential between your hotel and competitors. You need to keep the chat conversation real by adding a human touch to your chat – no robotic responses. Making better guest experiences means more loyal followers. The value of peer-to-peer marketing is limitless!

Responding in real time is the true strength of live chat apps. Which room has the perfect beach view? What restaurants do you recommend? What rooms are available for my wedding date? Answering questions like these in real time through a live chat app will provide your guest with instant gratification and the incentive to click onto that final booking.

Providing guidance as potential guests navigate your website is another strength of chat apps. If your visitor gets stuck while trying to finalize a booking, they are relieved to see someone is on standby ready to give the instructions toward their final booking. Your live chat agent saves the day and the guest experience is sweet. A two-fold benefit: Great customer service and a customer loyalty opportunity.

Delivering the greatest customer service all comes down to relationships formed with guests. Whether it’s your hotel staff or your marketing department/agency, the first impression is what sets the tone of your guest’s entire stay and what will become the tone of your online presence. Live chat apps provide the perfect venue to set a lasting, positive tone that resonates across all online platforms and using the feedback you will get to improve services is invaluable!

Boosting bookings and reducing costs are two important end goals to your marketing efforts. Just think of all the time you save in follow up when you can provide the answer quickly through a chat message. Better response time means better online reputation. Better online reputation means more bookings. More bookings translate into more revenue.

Messenger apps are providing a completely new way to expand your hotel’s organic online presence, provide great customer service and create new revenue opportunities. Don’t miss out on the chance to make your mark. Welcome to the future! For more information on how your hotel can benefit from offering guests a Live Chat experience in a cost effective manner, please visit: LiveChatForHotels.com.

https://lodginginteractive.com/wp-content/uploads/logo-lodging-interactive-2016dark340.png00djvallaurihttps://lodginginteractive.com/wp-content/uploads/logo-lodging-interactive-2016dark340.pngdjvallauri2016-09-07 04:13:232017-02-13 09:09:28Live Chat Messaging Apps and the Future of Hotel Customer Service

Lodging Interactive, the leading digital marketing and social media engagement agency exclusively serving the hospitality industry, today announced the rollout of CoMMingle Live ChatSM the hospitality industry’s first real time, fully managed live chat service for hotels and resorts. The industry launch follows a six-month BETA test and the hiring of a dedicated team of in-house, US based CoMMingle Live Chat agents.

“CoMMingle Live Chat enables properties to offer website customer service and to assist consumers with real-time online direct sales support at the time of booking intent,” stated Mr. DJ Vallauri, Lodging Interactive’s President and CEO. “CoMMingle Live Chat combines the latest in live chat technologies with our US based live chat agents to assist potential guests in making reservations on the hotel’s website.”

While Live Chat technology is not new, it is increasingly becoming the preferred hotel website communications vehicle for consumers seeking additional information missing from hotel websites. With the ubiquity of responsive hotel websites and fast mobile broadband Live Chat services provide hotels with the ability to provide customer service and assisted sales support via their websites, where there currently is none.

“CoMMingle Live Chat enables us to provide the highest level of customer service even before our guests arrive,” said Ed Reagoso, General Manager of the Wilshire Grand Hotel. “I’ve been amazed at the level of customer engagement CoMMingle Live Chat has been able to achieve which helps us build long term loyalty and book more business.”

“CoMMingle Live Chat enables conversational commerce” added Mr. Vallauri. “It’s not about the technology so much, but rather the ‘human-to-human’ connection and engagement. Consumers booking online hotel rooms don’t want to deal with bot technology or artificial intelligence, they want hospitality…a human connection and this is what CoMMingle Live Chat delivers.”

The CoMMingle Live Chat service is available for hotels seven days a week and is priced on a low monthly subscription fee. Unlike a call center environment CoMMingle Live Chat agents are dedicated to small number of hotels which allows each agent to fully know the properties they’re managing. The result is an efficient and seamless experience for the consumer every time.

CoMMingle Live Chat service benefits for hotels:

Real-time customer engagement throughout the booking process

Provides conversational commerce while assisting in the booking process

Increase in direct bookings and event RFP submissions

Reduces negative reviews/comments posted to TripAdvisor & OTA sites

Crisis alert escalation to property as needed

Offers true market differentiation within competitive set

Unlimited live agent fully managed chats for low monthly fee

100% mobile enabled

100% US based live chat agents, employed by Lodging Interactive

Getting started with CoMMingle Live Chat is easy and implementation only requires a small snippet of code be added to the hotel website. For more information please visit: https://LiveChatForHotels.com

About Lodging Interactive:

Headquartered in Parsippany, NJ, Lodging Interactive is a full-service digital marketing and social media engagement agency exclusively servicing the hospitality industry. Through its web design and search optimization division as well as its CoMMingle Social Media Division, Lodging Interactive provides effective Internet marketing services to hundreds of branded and independent properties as well as management companies, restaurants and spas. The company also offers fully managed Live Chat agents for hotel websites through its LiveChatForHotels.com division.

Lodging Interactive is a proud supporter of the Hotel Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI) and the company’s president, DJ Vallauri, currently serves on the Board of Directors of HSMAI’s New York Chapter. For more information, please contact sales@lodginginteractive.com, 877-291-4411 or visit the company’s website.